OT: Kitchen Knives

Aardvark

Aardvark

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Nov 26, 2002
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I've been putting handles on kitchen knife blades for about a year now. Made 9 or 10 of them. Give them away to friends.

I buy the blanks and fastening hardware (pins, screws, etc.) from Texas Knife Supply, the wood (usually in blocks) from eBay.

I finally got a friend to take a picture of the latest. My own efforts, either because of a cheap camera or extreme lack of skill, did not turn out well. The last phrase was written using the British Vast Understatement font; not sure if it came through.

http://kwo.smugmug.com/gallery/584434

The wood is purpleheart, the finish semi-gloss spar varnish (not polyurethane).

When I grow up, I want to make a blade, too.
 
Nice work.

I used to buy old kitchen knives second hand, knock off the scales, sometimes reshape the blade on a grinder, and rehandle them.

It's pretty fun and you can be creative with different shapes. A long chef's knife can turn into a short bladed knife with a long handle that is shaped to your liking.
 
Now I've got to get inspired to do the same. More work. :grumpy:

Does the steep handle to cutting edge angle work well? All mine are much closer to a straight line (A 180 is a 180, as an instructor said).

jw
 
jw556 said:
Now I've got to get inspired to do the same. More work. :grumpy:

Does the steep handle to cutting edge angle work well? All mine are much closer to a straight line (A 180 is a 180, as an instructor said).

jw
Click to expand...
Thanks for the kind words, guys.

jw (your initials are mine, btw), the usefulness of that knife was a total surprise to me. When I first saw it, I thought "Nawwww...". I made myself one about 6 months ago, and it's now the one that I reach for first. Heft is just right (with a pretty heavy handle), shape is perfect for chopping herbs/vegetables, and works great for meat. The edge is super sharp (says "cryogenically hardened" on the TK website, whatever that means). My scepticism has turned to admiration.

Sorry about giving you more work. Really is fun, though.

The most impressive one that I've done was in hard maple. The finished handle looked almost like ivory. I'm in the process of doing 2 more in that wood, and, now that I have a sucker to take the pictures... I mean: there is a friend with a digital camera, I can post those as well.
 
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